Soliloquy

It’s been a few weeks, friends. Though I am not sure I was missed, I am sure that I missed it. The writing, not you, because I’m both not sure who you are nor am I sure you exist. I could be writing for no other reason than to write. And that’s fine. That’s just fine. The more I get into it the more I find myself becoming less focused on who reads than the week before. That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate readers and comments, I do. It’s to say I don’t focus on it. Period.

I’ve written hundreds of things in my life, perhaps thousands, I’ve never counted. They were about life in general, then I was moved by my two oldest daughters to write and now my newest. There are a couple of ghost blogs out there surfing the ethesphere in perpetuity, life having reared it’s ugly head a couple of times and interrupted my writing journey. Perhaps not a tragic loss to the world but to me a source of aggravation, these interruptions. However, I was able to compile some into my latest works which are now published, Cradle to Crayons and Reflections of Fatherhood are now available via Amazon and Apple. Shameless plug completed.

Very seldom do I talk about myself, I speak of my family and my children to no end, and yes I am aware that I am the written equivalent of that dad with the 50 photos in his wallet that won’t shut up about how perfect his children are. I speak of fatherhood in general and my experiences therein but the mentions of myself in any real sense, in a public forum, are infrequent and that’s for good reason. Well, not good, but explainable nonetheless.

Part of it is that I can see the end, and that wasn’t true a few years ago. Life has a way of constantly changing your perspective, narrowing and expanding your ability to view things through an ever changing lens called mortality. The once immortal becomes the next fallen leaf in these seasons of change and I am not immune. Part of it is that I want it to be out there for my kids, I’ve noted that. Part of it is because I’ve been egged and urged to do so for years and despite believing that I’m not worthy here I am. Trying, at least. And a very important part is that it is the only way I know how to say some of the things I want to say.

I can speak, and very well. I’m very good at speaking publicly, up until the moment becomes emotionally charged for me. Then I’m a mess. It’s embarrassing and it is something I’ve struggled with. But it is me, and I cannot change that. My emotions run deep but they are very near to surface and if I but prick that thin veil of still waters on the surface the rushing current beneath surges upwards and the serenity of the moment is gone.

As I wrote Reflections, I was able to go through a lot of what I had written in the past. As I mentioned in the book, there is far, far more than what many believe. Some of it public, some on my laptop, some in journals, but very much of it is unpublished and will remain so. It’s for my wife, my children, my family. And it’s for me. It is me. The truest and most authentic me you’ll find. As a son, as a husband, as a human and yes, as a father. It’s what moved me to write the book Reflections.

Life is noisy, and it conspires daily to ruin our interactions with each other. Phones, texts, work, bills, troubles……the list goes on and on. We have very few authentic interactions with each other any more. Precious few, in fact. And the speed of life increases exponentially with technology. Conversely, our authentic and genuine interactions plummet accordingly. Through it all the only constant has been the written word. Through millennia, that constant has been the sole means in which we can, and have, been authentically and genuinely immortalized in thought, feeling and emotion. There is a truth to written word that cannot be duplicated in text, video or any other form.

In the quietness of my study each morning as I write this, or something else, there is also something else. I’m not sure what it is. It has touched me numerous times as I used to describe it ,as getting ‘in the zone’, but now realize it as something far beyond that. It is connection. It is an earnestness and honesty that you cannot reach in any other way, in any other form save writing. Even now I’m unsure how to describe it because to reach for it means it vanishes, like trying to catch smoke in the palm of your hand.

What has this to do with fatherhood, you might ask? Everything, would be my answer. Because writing for and about my family, my friends and my life in general and my children in particular is the sum of something much greater than it’s individual parts. It is their husband, their son, their father stripped of all his insecurities and frailties, all his failures and fears and with the bravado of his role removed. It is his earthly mask removed and the ability to gaze into what I believe is a man’s soul.

We are mortal, flesh and blood. We can be seen and touched and held and photographed and we will be all these things throughout life. But what we are, who we are, can only be told. Others may tell that story. It is told through articles, in book liners, in books if you’re really lucky and eventually in obituaries. But it is best told by you, and to those that mean the most to you, for if you can find that ‘zone’ for the lack of a better term, you’ll find that you not only touch that someone more deeply than you ever have, but that you’ll touch a part of yourself that you seldom reach.

Which is why I am such a believer in documenting things for your loved ones, especially your children. I have erred and made mistakes, I have done great things and some I am ashamed of. I have fallen and gotten back up and fallen once more. In my brazen youth I thought it necessary to be the image a Superman to my children, when in fact, I was setting myself up for a standard I could never hope to maintain. I am human. Of that I am quite certain. But I am still a father

As that father, there are things I cannot say, that I write. As a father I owe that much to my children. They know me like no other. Yet a lot of what they know and see and hear is tainted by that same lens, and at times, hidden by that same mask. Except when it is removed. Sometimes here in this format, but most often in the things I won’t let you read. That is for them and them along with my family and closest friends. It is the journal of that which they couldn’t see or I didn’t want them to see at the moment, rightfully or not.

The writing, therefore, is a testament to may things albeit in my limited way. I hope it resonates with you, but if not, then I am certain it will with the ones for which it is intended. There are moments of brilliance followed by long stretches of doubt, indecision and fits and starts. Such is my life. If I am gifted, I have doubts. In the reflections are a gift for them, I have very few, in that it is a gift for me, I have none. One overarching thought precludes all the those however. One day, I will be unable to say these things any longer. Be they messy, incomplete, and even on some days barely comprehensible, I’d much rather have them said than not.